


Providence Divine

by GoddessofRoyalty



Series: Prompt Fics [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Childbirth, Gen, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Mpreg, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:47:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7475727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofRoyalty/pseuds/GoddessofRoyalty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “Post The Empire Strikes Back - Vader and Luke during the battle are crashing at the some wild planet. From the stress deeply pregnant Luke is going into labour, that leaves Vader the only person, who can help his scared son.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Providence Divine

**Author's Note:**

> So this was gonna’ get chucked in some oneshot series but then I saw how long it got and well... now it’s on its own. Title’s from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. 
> 
> I really hope I gave this prompt and the characters the treatment they deserve. I am tweeking the canon... a fair fucking bit in order to get this to work but TBH the second we started impregnating males shit was gonna’ shift (also fuck the canon reason for Padme dying – it was childbirth (that as far as I can tell she didn’t seek a single piece of medical attention before the actual birth) simple as that). 
> 
> Oh and who’s the father? You decide. 
> 
> Warnings: mpreg, childbirth,

He wouldn’t have fought his son. If the surrounding circumstances were anything else he would never have fought his son with Luke in the condition he was in.

The surrounding circumstances were what they were and he had no choice.

He still shouldn’t have fought his son. Should of said no the second he found out about the condition Luke was in.

Not that it matters now. The Emperor won’t be able to find them for a long while yet. Nobody will be finding them for a long while. The planet is a nothing planet. The last one anyone will check for them unless they send a signal out to tell them to look for them there.

The communications are fried. Most of the ship is fried. If he’s completely honest it is a miracle they both survived. A miracle that they both stumbled out before the suffocating black smoke filled the ship.

At this point Vader would be glad to see a Resistance ship on the horizon.

Luke’s in pain. He can feel it through the force. It is not agenizing pain but it is defiantly there. If it wasn’t for the sight of his son Vader would have merely written it off as injuries from the battle or the landing.

He can see his son though and he knows it is not merely burns and bruises causing the pain.

Luke leans against the wreckage of the ship. If it was not for the fact Vader is sure he will sense any danger of the ship exploding or releasing some poisonous material he would have snatched his son away from there willing or not. There doesn’t seem to be any further danger from the ship (just uselessness) so if Luke wants to be there Vader will give him that.

Luke leans against the ship and cradles his stomach that is much too large for his slight form. He cradles it and mutters down at it apparently unaware of Vader’s presence.

“Not now,” he says as his hands rub circles on his stomach. “Please not now. It’s too early. Please just wait until we get back to the base. Just a little longer please.”

His son sounds near to tears and Vader wishes to be free from the suit. Wishes for flesh or something that appeared more like it. In his armour there is no comfort he can offer his son.

“Luke.” His son’s attention is quick to snap onto him with the words and Luke is pushing himself to his feet lightsaber tightly clenched in hand.

“What do you want?”

Darth Vader wants a number of things. Most of all he wants to go back in time and make sure this situation never happens. Ideally go back and stop himself from falling to the Emperor’s will but at the very least tell the Emperor that no, he won’t track down and capture his heavily pregnant son. Tell him that obtaining Luke can wait until after he has given birth. It doesn’t matter that obtaining the child with mother would be easier while it is still unborn.

He doesn’t say that. Instead he says, “I want access to the ship.”

“Why?”

“To try and get the communications systems back online.”

“What for?”

“To try and get you medical help.”

His son looks sceptical. Clearly doesn’t believe it. Believes there to be an alternative motive at least if it is not a all-out lie. Vader can appreciate that he isn’t the most trustworthy person to his son, and is glad that his son is smart enough to recognise that despite the knowledge of their relationship. Still it cuts.

Luke does move aside. “Go on then.”

“Thank you.” Vader makes his way over to the ship but stops just before entering to look back at his son. Luke has found a tree to lean on and is staring up at the sky as if searching for a ship while his hand idly strokes his stomach. Vader wonders if his son is looking for the father of the child or just any ship carrying a friendly face. “You should rest.”

Luke looks at him with stubborn determination despite everything that he must be feeling. “Thanks for the advice but I’m good here.”

Vader doesn’t bother replying. He has no want to argue with his son when he is currently suffering enough. Instead he just continues into the ship and finds what needs to be fixed.

If he was still Anakin Skywalker he could do it. If he was Anakin Skywalker the solution would likely be obvious and quickly implemented. He has not been Anakin Skywalker for a great many years and had let many of his old skills decay with the passage of time.

That does not mean he will not try but he does not find much success.

They have no choice but to wait for someone else to find them.

He wonders which side will find them first. Wonders which side he wants to find them first.

Terror comes screaming at him through the force from his son. It’s clear that it is not meant to be communicated directly to him, just the echo of a strong emotion being sent out in every direction as the user’s control is stripped from their by their emotions.

He is quick to leave the ship, terrified that some wild animal has found his son while his guard is down and decided he would make an easy prey.

There is no wild animal in sight. Just his son, collapsed against the tree and openly sobbing, his hands running over his stomach fretfully.

He is so focused in on himself that he doesn’t react as Vader moves closer. Doesn’t react until Vader is kneeling down next to him and even then he doesn’t seem to realise who it is. There is fluid that has leaked through his pants and Vader has a feeling it isn’t urine.

“I thought they might just be practice contractions. I had them before so I thought hopefully it’d just be them again. It’s not though and it’s too soon and I can’t.” The sob that accompanies the last words tug at what is left of Vader’s heart and he regrets every decision he made that led to this point that much more.

It is his fault his son is in this situation. All his fault and he can’t even find the right way to comfort him. He does not know what words will make it better and he knows the suit is not something one could curl up to for comfort.

“Tell me about my mother,” his son says, his eyes pleading and stained with tears (and terrified, his eyes are so terrified). “Please. I need to know about her.”

Tell him about Padme? Vader had not thought about his love for many years. At least not past the fact that he had killed her. Picking at the scab of her death being the only way he managed to carry on all the years. The knowledge that he deserves to be punished for it the only thing keeping him from trying to end his own life. He cannot face her in the afterlife until he has atoned for his sins and for many years he had figured that his only possible atonement was a purgatory of servitude.

Now though, he had his son (her son, their son) asking him, no begging him to tell him about her. Even if it was only a means of distracting him it was better he let the memory given be the positive one, the one of her filled with life and light.

“Your mother was a Queen, one who loved her people and would give her life for them. She was bright and intelligent and always wanted to find the peaceful solution to a problem. She was beautiful and so strong and-“ she died the same time you were born.

He isn’t going to tell his son that. Despite the fact it wasn’t actually the birth that killed Padme but his actions he doubted that information would comfort his son.

“You loved her,” Luke laughs at it, but it is a pained laugh, a strained one that is accompanied with a wince and he massages his stomach after.

“Yes. Very much.”

Luke gives a tired nod at that and leans against the tree taking steadying breaths.

Vader knows they both don’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this moment of bonding with his son, no matter how stressful and fleeting it is. His son deserves so much better. Deserves to be giving birth in one of the best medical facilities in the galaxy surrounded by people that love him, not on some uninhabited planet that they are probably lucky has breathable air and only his enemy for help.

Still, he pushes his luck and tries to find out something about the life of his son. “What about you and their father?”

“Oh,” Luke bites his lip at the question, worries it between his teeth. “I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust you it’s just...”

That he doesn’t trust him. Which is fair enough. It had been not hours ago that the two of them had been fighting, and that was before one considered those Vader answered back to. Any information he gained could be used against Luke or the Resistance. It makes sense that he wouldn’t want to share it.

Another contraction hits and whatever peace his son had found is quickly lost again. Luke is back to sobbing and begging his body and the child to stop, to wait, that it was too early, he just needed a little more time.

His hands reach out, desperate to find something to grip onto and Vader instinctively give one of his hands that Luke grabs and squeezes as his face curls up in pain and he sobs.

Eventually that contraction too passes and Luke notices that his hand is still gripping onto Vader’s, onto his father’s. He snatches it away and struggles onto his feet.

“They’re getting stronger. You can leave. I know you don’t want to see this.” There is still panic coming off Luke in waves through the Force (and tears gathered in his eyes and staining his cheeks). Despite that fact he is somehow holding himself up straight. He is like his mother in that way, able to push his own pain aside if someone else is suffering. Like his mother in the way he always puts others above himself.

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

“You should have thought about that before you crashed us into this planet.” The words are harsh but there is no real anger behind them, just a resigned sadness.

The awkward silence that follows is quickly broken by another contraction that makes his sons stance falter and Vader finds himself quickly crossing the distance between them to catch and support him lest he fall.

Luke whimpers and mutters about how it is all too soon, is happening too quickly, pleads for it all to slow down and just please wait a little.

The contraction passes again but there is still pain etched into his son’s face. Luke breaks away from him but returns to the tree and leans against it, his hand idly stroking along his stomach which has somehow lower on his frame.

A few minutes pass and Vader watches his son’s frame tense up. The hand that rests against the tree uselessly clawing at the trunk trying to find somewhere to grip as the one resting against his stomach bunches the fabric that covers it up in white-knuckled grip.

It passes as well but his son’s frame does not relax at it, instead it seems to quiver in either stress, exhaustion, or fear. Perhaps all three. They certainly are all echoing through the Force from him.

It becomes a cycle of that. A cycle of watching his son brace through contractions and desperately try and regain his breath and strength between them. A cycle of Vader trying to figure out what he is supposed to do. Of trying to think of a way he can offer comfort to his clearly scared son. Of trying not to think about the fact that his wife was suffering in much the same way before she died.

The cycle breaks when Luke drops to his knees. Vader starts to move over to his son to check if he is okay but freezes when Luke shifts to tug his pants off. He watches his son shift himself so he is resting back on his knees and tentatively moves his hand so it is between his legs to check something. Whatever he finds makes the panic that echoes through the force become almost suffocating.

Despite everything he has been through in life Vader has no idea what he should do. Doesn’t know if he should comfort his son or give him privacy.

The next contraction hits and Luke doesn’t moan or sob but scream at it. Actually screams and Vader finds himself moving over to him despite the fact his mind still does not know if that is the right decision to make.

He hovers awkwardly but even as the contraction passes Luke is in too much pain to pay him much mind. Not that any relief his son could gain from the reprieve would be long lived as another contraction follows the previous quickly. He is apparently aware of Vader’s presence because one of his hands comes out to grip onto the arm of Vader’s suit and if it were not for the strength of the material it was made of Vader is sure it would be crushed in his son’s grip.

A new cycle is formed. This one more rapid and clearly painful on Luke as contraction after contraction tear through his body. Vader watches his son’s face contort in pain and tries to not to think about the death of his wife and Luke’s mother. Tries not to think that he might soon watch as childbirth takes away his family once again.

It doesn’t. Luke survives bringing his child into the world. Survives and buddles it up in his own shirt after cutting the cord and then collapses naked against the tree and steadies his breath.

It takes a handful of minutes but Luke does manage to gather himself enough to actually look down at his child with clear eyes and Vader watches as he gives the baby a tired smile.

“Hello little one, I’m glad to finally see you but I wish you had waited a little longer,” he mutters down at the bundle, hand coming down to gently stroke the child’s face.

“Rest,” Vader says and Luke looks up at him. He is exhausted, completely so, and honestly Vader is surprised he hasn’t already slipped into unconsciousness. “I will make sure no threat comes for either of you until help arrives.”

“And after that?” Luke’s hand tightens around his child, pulls them closer to his chest as if he has any strength left in him to fight in order to defend them.

“We will see who finds us first,” he walks away after that, not wanting to see his son’s reaction to the words. He hopes his son takes his advice and the chance to rest before someone does find them and chaos inevitable breaks out.

As he walks away to ensure no predators find either his son or his grandchild he thinks that he hopes it is the Resistance that finds them first.


End file.
